The Rev. Paul Timothy Roberts Sr. is the inaugural guest on a ‘Leading Theologically’ series on reconciliation

LOUISVILLE — “Leading Theologically,” a show hosted by the Rev. Bill Davis of the Presbyterian Foundation, kicked off a series on reconciliation Wednesday with a guest who’s thought deeply and taken actions to help bring that about — the Rev. Paul Timothy Roberts Sr. , president of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary. Listen to their 35-minute conversation here.

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Through grant funding and a wiliness to hear from a range of Presbyterians, JCSTS has hosted a number of listening sessions across the country. “Our aspiration was to test the readiness of faith-based communities and congregations to mount up a national reparations effort,” Roberts said. “There are a lot of congregations in the country who are engaged in this work. We wanted to do our homework to see what kind of barometer we could use to determine who’s doing what and how widespread it is.”

Among the surprising findings: “Faith communities are all over the map, especially on controversial topics like reparations,” Roberts reported. “We learned that there is not a consistent understanding of what reparations is” and “how it relates to our theology as Presbyterians.”

“We found there is not a readiness for a national effort,” Roberts told Davis. “Some groups are doing great work” but “many congregations around the country don’t even talk about reparations for fear of conflict and divisiveness.”

Asked by Davis for stories of “the good work people are doing at the local level,” Roberts mentioned congregations that are repurposing their buildings “in an effort to make their facilities more hospitable as an act of repair. There are congregations and presbyteries using the proceeds from the sale of buildings for faith-based repair work.”

“We also got wind of some faith communities raising money within their congregations and granting those funds to communities and individuals in need as an act of repair.”

Davis asked: “What’s been the relationship between reparations and reconciliation for you?”

Reconciliation isn’t even a word Roberts uses very often these days.

“It’s loaded,” he said. “Many of us, although well-meaning when we use the word, are prone to skip over all the work that needs to be done in order to arrive at a place where a community, a group of people, a relationship can be reconciled.”

Historically, some white people have arrived “at a point where they have acknowledged historic wrongs. It’s often, ‘OK, we admit the wrong. Y’all come on over and we welcome you into our space.’ There’s no parity there,” Roberts said. “There’s no reconciliation. At its core, reconciliation involves not only the acknowledgement of a wrong, but it engages a certain process in order to repair the harm felt and experienced by the harmed.”

The acknowledgement is a starting place, he said. Then there are “those acts of healing that we call repair, which is the nature of reparations.”

“One of the things we have learned is when people are talking about reparations, they go right to the money,” Roberts said. “That’s not where it’s at. Reparations is about repair. It’s about implementing a healing process that leads to repair. Sometimes that involves money because we live in a capitalistic society.”

“Those who have been harmed have been harmed by deprivation of opportunity, education or access, and all that involves money,” Roberts said. “The heart of the matter is, how do we repair a breach, a wrong?”

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“Are there things folk like me who are white can do to accompany the work you’re doing around this reparations study? I was about to ask you for advice to soothe my white soul,” Davis said, and Roberts laughed.

Davis shared this quote from the South African cleric Allan Boesak: “Reconciliation devoid of justice is under savage strain. Social cohesion remains elusive, and racism never conquered is resurgent.”

Then Davis wondered: “How are we partners in this work of reparations and repair?”

Roberts recalled meeting Boesak about eight years ago at a Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. “He’s a man who values all people, and that is the point,” Roberts said. “That is the point of any authentic reconciliation work, and that is the point of any discussion about reparations. Allan Boesak helps people wrap their brain around the societal hurts that people experience, and even the hurts that happen within any faith-based community. Some of those hurts are part of the human experience, but some of them cut very deeply and run along racial lines, gender lines, orientation — you name it. They are deeply entrenched in our society. Allan Boesak helps people understand you are very much — even 400 years in as we are in the United States — what you were at your origin.”

A mentor of Roberts once “laid it out for me that despite our Constitution and all of our beautiful rhetoric, America has always been an oligarchy. It has always been governed by a few despite our structures and our rhetoric. Those few tend to have the deepest pockets.”

In order for white people to be in partnership with Black people and vice-versa “and for our Presbyterian slice of the world to rally around a Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary or any other community, it first begins with a deep understanding of human value, an appreciation for human flourishing at all levels,” Roberts said. “Then it’s an acknowledgement of our history and our origin as a country, and we’re not doing that well.”

“We ignore the history of Black and brown people,” Roberts said, although “we’re doing a little better with that.”

Ignoring that history “can’t stand, because when that happens, the net impact is that people who look like me are misunderstood and undervalued, and people who look like [Davis] are overvalued,” Roberts said. “We have to understand the value of every human being, and we have to embrace our history — the good, the bad and the ugly of it. That’s a huge step toward repair.”

“This is a good, hard conversation. I don’t think any of this work is easy,” Davis said. “If I cannot acknowledge my complicity in action in the world, I can’t even begin to do repair and reparations work.”

Roberts reminded Davis of something John Donne pointed out four centuries ago: No one is an island.

“Sometimes when I’m with white people who are getting it, there is a sense of personal responsibility, sometimes at the expense of collective responsibility,” Roberts said. “We’re all part of a wider community, a network, a society, and what we’re talking about in these conversations about repair and reconciliation is the harm of a collective — ways for the harming collective to repair the hurt, harm and brokenness of the other collective, the deprived.”

“What I want to underscore is there is a personal responsibility that goes with this work, and it falls within the context of a larger collective responsibility,” Roberts said. “Part of the work for white people, as I understand it, is to do both in equal measure — not just hand off some money or befriend a Black or brown person, but to work within the white community to ensure that these values and these principles are understood.”

Watch previous editions of “Leading Theologically” here.